Homemade Greens Powder with Leftover Garden Greens

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Want to add a boost of nutrition into your foods all year round? Try making your own Green Powder Blend! It’s easy to make and store.

Want to add a boost of nutrition into your foods all year round? Try making your own Green Powder Blend! It's easy to make and store.

How to Make Your Own Green Powder Blend

I’ve had some dried greens sitting on my pantry shelves for quite some time now. While we use them once in a while, they seem to be taking up an awful lot of space, and I just don’t tend to use them in their “whole” forms.

I’ve been working on cleaning my pantry a lot over the past month, making room for things that we need to add and cleaning out items that we don’t use very often. We even did another Pantry Challenge back in January to try to get things used up.

But these dried greens…they just hung out on my shelf!

Dried Broccoli

Here are some of the things that I dried from summertime:

  • Broccoli Leaves
  • Carrot Tops
  • Beet Tops
  • Kale
  • Zucchini
  • Cucumbers

We tend to use quite a bit of the dried zucchini (I shared all about that here). But for the other items, I was finding a hard time using the entire jar at once.

These are just the greens that I saved and had on hand. Here is a full list of greens that you can dry and use:

  • Broccoli Leaves
  • Cabbage Leaves
  • Cauliflower Leaves
  • Beet Tops
  • Turnip Tops
  • Carrot Tops
  • Dandelion Leaves
  • Kale
  • Pak Choi
  • Salad Greens
  • Spinach
  • Nasturitum
  • Celery Leaves
  • Chard

And I’m sure there are plenty more that I’m leaving out!

Let me back up a little bit and give you some context before I show you what I did with these foods.

In the summer, it always seems like greens are in abundance in June and the beginning of July. Way too much for us to eat all at once! To help make the most of these plants, I dried many of the leaves and tops. I posted all about drying plants and herbs here.

I use spinach/kale powder daily in some grape juice. A scant teaspoon in 8-10oz of welches concord grape. The delicious grape juice makes it more palatable to drink and is an easy way to get my daily greens.

Cathy, Little House Living reader
Broccoli Leaves

I dried all of these greens either by hanging them up to dry or by using a dehydrator to speed along the process. I have the L’Equip Filter Pro Dehydrator from Pleasant Hill Grain, and it’s been working wonderfully for me for over 10 years.

Beets

Why save the greens?

Broccoli Leaves are high in Vitamin A and contain calcium, folate, vitamin C, iron, vitamin K, fiber, and protein. (Source)

Carrot Tops contain significant amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, calcium, and iron. (Source)

Beet Greens are rich in Vitamin K, copper, manganese, iron and calcium. (Source)

Kale is a nutrition superstar due to the amounts of vitamins A, K, B6 and C, calcium, potassium, copper and manganese it contains. (Source)

And while zucchini and cucumbers technically aren’t “greens” in the sense that we use that word, being fresh fruits and veggies they also have their fair share of nutrition and minerals to bring to the table.

There are many other typical garden greens that are healthy to save as well such as swiss chard, mustard greens, and spinach. I don’t recommend dehydrating lettuce as the taste can be bitter.

Saving greens off of the plants that we are able to not only helps us make the most of the plant that we put all that hard work into growing, but it can provide food and nutrition for our families all year round and help stretch the grocery budget.

Plus leafy green vegetables are typically so easy to grow!

I’m trying to use the Kale powder I made last summer. It works good mixed in peanut butter for sandwiches–you don’t even know it’s there. Thanks for all the great information- now I am going to try beet greens and carrot tops next year! (And maybe more.)

CThomas, Little House Living reader
Powdered Vegetables

How to Use Dried Greens

Since they weren’t getting used much in their whole form, I decided to take all of the greens and blend them together into a super green powder. I made a video while doing this and you can check out what I did to make this green powder in it below!

I’m using my Blendtec Blender to make these greens into a DIY greens powder. It works great! Any blender should do the trick though if you have a different brand or a food processor.

Amish Chicken Casserole

But now what exactly do we do with these dried greens?

Some basic ideas are:

  • Add into scrambled eggs to make green eggs
  • Add into smoothies
  • Sprinkle on salads or in your salad dressing
  • Add to casseroles
  • Add into pasta dishes
  • Add into soups or stews
  • Sprinkle over pizza
  • Add into muffins or pancakes, especially those that contain chocolate to mask the color/flavor better for picky eaters
  • Sprinkle over veggies before roasting (like potatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, etc)

You can add as much or as little of the green powder into your dishes, there is no right or wrong with this! (Just keep in mind that they will add flavor to meals so you may want to be cautious in using large amounts in things like smoothies.)

These recipes on Little House Living would be excellent for adding the green powder into:

Really, the sky is the limit to what you can add this green powder to. It’s an excellent nutrient-dense, shelf-stable food to have in your pantry.

I did a similar thing but I froze my green/veggie tops in zip loc bags and left them in the freezer. We can use them in smoothies, soups, omelets, casseroles, etc…

Kai, Little House Living reader
Cabbage

Common Questions About Saving Greens

Should you save and dehydrate the stems of plants too?

For the most part, only save the leaves. Stems tend to have a different flavor and may not be good in your DIY greens powder. The exceptions to this would be things like spinach and chard where you do typically eat the leaves.

How do I use dehydrated greens as a supplement?

Since most of your green powders or dried greens will be made of various greens, it would be hard to correctly calculate the nutrients exactly. I recommend just using these in other recipes.

How do I make a green juice?

Mix some powdered greens into a glass of warm water until they are dissolved. For better flavor, blend the greens into a smoothie.

Homemade Pantry Mixes Ebook Promo

More Dehydrated Foods

Do you make your own greens powder? What do you add it in to?

Me and Kady

Merissa Alink

Merissa has been blogging about and living the simple and frugal life on Little House Living since 2009 and has internationally published 2 books on the topic. You can read about Merissa’s journey from penniless to freedom on the About Page. You can send her a message any time from the Contact Page.

This post on Homemade Greens Powder was originally posted on Little House Living in February 2022. It has been updated as of December 2023.

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19 Comments

  1. This fall I shredded and dehydrated cabbage and kale. A ton of them fit i to a 1/2gal jar but that’s where they are. Still. I should give this a whirl (literally). My thoughts were to add them to soups, but a spoonful to other things would probably be a good idea. To add them to eggs, does the powder need to be rehydrated first?

  2. I did a similar thing but I froze my green/veggie tops in zip loc bags and left them in the freezer. We can use them in smoothies, soups, omelets, casseroles, etc…

  3. Love this idea so much. I am goig to do this for sure. Thanks for the great idea…..not wasting the greens.

  4. I’m trying to use the Kale powder I made last summer. It works good mixed in peanut butter for sandwiches–you don’t even know it’s there. Thanks for all the great information- now I am going to try beet greens and carrot tops next year! (And maybe more.)

  5. Merissa, what a wonderful video. I am going to try and do this in the summer. I find the greens powder sold in the health food store is sooo expensive. Thanks again.

  6. Thanks for the suggestion on what dehydrator to buy. That sounds like a long lasting one. I may be buying one in the next few months.

  7. Merissa:
    This is absolutely brilliant! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. I buy a greens powder supplement to help with my health challenges! Agh! To think that I was composting what I could have eaten! Lesson learned. Keep up this good work. You are amazing.

  8. I use spinach/kale powder daily in some grape juice. A scant teaspoon in 8-10oz of welches concord grape. The delicious grape juice makes it more palatable to drink and is an easy way to get my daily greens.

  9. THE PICTURE SHOWING THE GREENS. IN YOUR GREEN HOUSE. I’D LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR GREEN HOUSE!

    THANKS!!!! JIMBOW

    1. Yes, that’s our long cattle panel tunnel greenhouse. I use it to start brassicas early (cabbage, broccoli, etc). I will get my husband to make a blog post on building it. It wasn’t the cheapest project but works wonderfully!

  10. Okay, I am gobsmacked, at the moment… Typically, I USE my greens when I have them – carrot tops in salads, radish tops in soup, etc. But in my life, I’ve never even heard of folks using the leaves of, say, broccoli/cauliflower!!! I use kale, dandelions, etc., in anything that calls for spinach – SOOOOOO many more nutrients than spinach, and any green sauteed with a little bacon grease and onion/garlic is delicious, I don’t care WHO you are!!! lol

    But I *always* have the outer leaves of cabbage/lettuce/cauliflower/broccoli… *face palm* You are BRILLIANT!!! I typically throw this stuff into the compost pile, but what a great way to give a little nutritional boost, especially to soups and things you’re using the actual veggie for, anyway!!!

    #brilliant…

    PS Doesn’t count quite the same, but the outer leaves steeped in boiling water make good natural dyes! Green leaves for greens; onion skins/peelings for yellow; sad/old beets for reds/pinks… You gave me a tip, so I’ll leave you with one! 🙂 Blessings, and L’Chaim, ~Chrissie

  11. I like this idea. I often buy parsley when doing a fancy food platter and always have a lot left over that I can’t use before it goes bad. So I have for years washed/dried parsley and celery leaves and layered them on a cookie sheet between paper towels. I don’t use my oven much since I’m single and old so I just put them in my (cold) oven and leave them until they are dried out. Crush up with my fingers and put them in labeled containers. I use this all the time for soups, steamed veggies, eggs and meat dishes. I’m going to try some more of your suggestions, especially kale since I find it difficult to get enough “green”! Thanks!

  12. Good afternoon Merissa,this is what i do for all my greens in the garden,i make sure i save all vy vegetables,almos ever day i dry my greens , my green powder i use it in soup, and in making bar soap as colourant .

    thanks for sharing

  13. Hi Merissa,

    What is the nutritional benefit? I always thought that maybe drying out greens would diminish the vitamins and other nutrients. I want to try this for health reasons but I wanted to ask you first.

    1. The exact nutrition benefits would depend on the type of green you are drying. If you keep your dehydrator under 110 degrees or air dry, you should be able to preserve a lot of the nutrients.